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Declaring that McCain is no conservative, Barr launches bid for Libertarian Party nomination
Mcclatchy Washington Bureau
Last Updated 5:22 am PDT Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A10
WASHINGTON – As a Republican congressman in 1998, Bob Barr helped impeach President Clinton. Now as a Libertarian seeking to run for president on his new party's ticket, Barr could irritate Republicans.
He threatens to siphon off conservative support from Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
Barr, 59, formally launched his campaign Monday for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination with a vow to slash the size and power of the federal government, restore civil liberties curbed since 2001 and pull back U.S. troops from abroad, both in Iraq and at bases around the world.
Barr, from Georgia, insisted that he didn't consider how his candidacy might affect the major-party candidates, but he noted that several Republican friends had called to urge him not to launch the third-party run.
"We would prefer it if you don't run," Barr quoted them. "It would upset the apple cart."
And while he issued a vague criticism of Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the front-runner for the Democratic Party's nomination, Barr saved his most pointed criticisms for the Republican Party he left in 2006, a president who he said abandoned fundamental conservative principles such as civil liberties, and McCain, whom he dismissed as anything but conservative.
"If Senator McCain … does not succeed in winning the presidency, it will not be because of Bob Barr, not because of Senator Obama," Barr said.
"It will be because Senator McCain and his party did not present a vision, an agenda, platform and a series of programs that actually resonated positively with the American people. It also may be because their candidate did not resonate with the American people."
Barr is considered the front-runner for the Libertarian nomination at a convention to be held in Denver on May 25 that also will feature several rivals, including former Democratic Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska. Should he win the nod, he then faces the challenge of getting his name before voters; the party says it's so far on the ballot in 28 states.
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BOB BARR The ex-GOP lawmaker, seek- ing the Libertar- ian nomination for president, says McCain isn't a conservative.
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